Superior Printing Ink Breaks Ground For New Varnish Plant

Monday, October 11, 2004

Press release from the issuing company

HAMDEN, Connecticut—October 5, 2004— Superior Printing Ink Co., Inc., held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new varnish manufacturing plant to be added to its central manufacturing facility (CMF) in Hamden, Connecticut. Slated to be operational by next summer, the new 12,000 square foot varnish plant will allow Superior Printing Ink to increase its level of automation in the manufacture of lithographic printing ink.
Michael Brice, president and chief operating officer of Superior Printing Ink Co., said, “The new plant will help us improve quality while lowering our costs through greater efficiencies including bulk storage and automatic weighing and transfer. It’s the next step in ensuring our ability to provide products of consistent high quality to the graphics arts community and to stay competitive in the global marketplace.”
Evidence of the company’s current high quality at the CMF—servicing 25 branches around the country—is the upgraded ISO 9001:2000 certification awarded last year. As separate full-service lithographic ink manufacturing facilities, the branches constitute internal customers “who are very exacting in their needs and who are also held to a high level of service,” said Brice. “Our new plant is therefore also a demonstration to the people in our company that Superior Printing Ink is investing in the future.”
Currently, the company’s varnish plant is in Newark, New Jersey, necessitating transport of the varnish in drums by truck to the 35,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Hamden. There the varnish is added manually to the pigment used to manufacture ink. Michael Brice said, “The new plant will eliminate drums and freight costs and allow us to produce larger batches, with varnish pumped directly from our storage tanks into weighing vessels.” Automation will further reduce the possibility of human error, ensuring exact dosing for each batch.
Ink produced at the Hamden facility is shipped from an adjacent 30,000 square foot warehouse distribution center to the branches, which use some of it to create a wide range of specialty inks. Specialty inks are also created at the facility, which has a custom-built automated dosing machine, designed specifically for Superior Printing Ink. “It is the only one for lithographic printing ink that we know of in the Western Hemisphere,” said Harvey Brice, managing director of the company.
As well as Michael Brice and Harvey Brice, members of Superior Printing Ink at the groundbreaking ceremony included Jeffrey Simons, chief executive officer; Stanley Hittman, executive vice president; Harold Rubin, chief financial officer; Salvatore Moscuzza, senior vice president/project manager; and Robert Bernatavitz, general manager for Hamden Facilities. Other attendees were Carl Porto Sr., of Parrett, Porto, Parese & Colwell, attorneys for the project; Gerald Kagan, president, and William Fuentes, project architect, of The Kagan Company; and from PDS Engineering & Construction, Inc., general contractors, Frank Borawski, vice president, and Serafino Calafiore, project manager.